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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28891332">Nor The Crack In The Plate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweentowns/pseuds/betweentowns'>betweentowns</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stray Kids (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Angst, Ceramist!Seungmin, Could Be Read As Aromantic Seungmin, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mild Smut, Musing, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Unrequited Love, pottery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:08:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28891332</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweentowns/pseuds/betweentowns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jisung is in love with Seungmin, and he has two and a half kitchen cabinets back at his apartment, full-to-bursting with several dozen homemade mugs and plates and toothbrush holders, to show for it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Han Jisung | Han/Kim Seungmin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nor The Crack In The Plate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The drive from Seoul to the countryside is irritating, but never enough that Jisung thinks it isn’t worth it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jisung thinks about these trips a lot—how when he’d first started making this journey he’d be accompanied by so many friends they would need two cars. How now he spends too much money each month taking a taxi instead of the bus so he can have more privacy to stare dramatically out the window on the freeway and steel himself for what he knows is coming when he gets to Seungmin’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the taxi finally pulls into Seungmin’s driveway, it feels like it has been forever but the sun has barely even risen. It’s Sunday morning, and any normal person would still be in their pajamas. Jisung thanks the ahjussi with a sizable tip that he can’t really afford with his grad-student budget, then watches from Seungmin’s front door as he drives away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The grass is a little damp with early-morning dew, and Jisung waits for a rain droplet of his choosing to fully make its way down a random blade of grass before he gathers the courage to ring the bell. A full minute passes, then another. Jisung’s hand hovers over the doorbell—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Seungmin calls from the separate garage on the side of the house. Jisung startles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A normal person would still be in their pajamas, but Seungmin is not a normal person. He is awake and clean-shaven already, and Jisung knows that when he gets close enough he’ll smell faintly of coffee. Underneath a worn apron he is dressed smartly, in a well-fitting pair of jeans and white shirt. He looks at Jisung like he had almost forgotten he was coming. “Is today already the 24th?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Flustered, Jisung lowers his hand. “Yeah,” he replies, like he hasn’t been painstakingly counting down the days since his last visit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin balances a fifty-pound slab of red earthenware clay on his knee, peering at Jisung for a second. Then he gestures towards the garage with his head, heaves up the bag, and ducks inside, not waiting to confirm that Jisung will follow. “C’mon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two-car garage turned studio is neat, today—the large kiln sits in the corner, parallel to a few different sized pottery wheels. The one Seungmin is probably using is pulled out, a stool perched behind it. Against two of the walls are organized shelves holding towels and buckets, brushes and tools that Jisung can never remember the name of until Seungmin asks him to hand him something. In the center of the room, a long, wooden table with a few cups of paintbrushes in the middle. It tapers off into a drying rack, which sits next to the kiln, which Seungmin drops the bag he’s carrying right in front of noisily. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s early, no?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung pulls out one of the chairs at the wooden table and settles into it. He has no jacket to hang because it’s nearly summer, no bag to set down not because Seungmin would mind him staying over, but because Seungmin would never think to ask him to stay over. “Wanted to beat the traffic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On Sunday?” Seungmin asks, and it’s not unkind, which almost makes it worse. He pulls a pocket knife from his apron and uses it to cut open the top of the fresh bag of clay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” Jisung explains noncommittally. “Seoul.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ahh,” Seungmin replies, because this he does know. “Seoul.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The eight of them had met in Seoul during college years ago, back when Jisung and Seungmin, Hyunjin and Felix were baby-faced freshmen. It was Felix who had hit it off with an upperclassmen Chan when the two found out they were both from Australia. Their group widened for Chan’s best friend Minho and boyfriend Changbin, then again the next year, when Hyunjin introduced them to Jeongin, who'd gone to the same high school as him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, even Jeongin has graduated, but they’d all remained close friends. Work and grad school and Felix’s veterinary residency make it hard to see them all, harder still to get them all </span>
  <em>
    <span>together, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but at least they were scattered around the city. Seungmin had scattered </span>
  <em>
    <span>outside </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the city. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Barely twenty-five, and yet Seungmin is the only one of Jisung’s friend group that lives in an actual house. Not Chan and Changbin, who have basically been a married couple for the better part of the last decade. Not even Minho, who has three cats to his name and a steady job. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Seungmin just has his shit together. The clay lands onto the table with uneven thumps as Seungmin beats at the red lump, occasionally slicing off a chunk with a wire cutter. When he deems it ready, he slaps the clay onto the pottery wheel, making a half-ball of it with his hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some woman ordered a fifty-piece china set,” Seungmin tells him. “And then complained when I told her how long it would take.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s annoying.” Jisung toes off his shoes and brings his knees to his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right? I almost was going to cancel on her, but then she offered me a fifty percent tip if I could finish in a month.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Woah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, but it means no weekends off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung snorts. “You don’t take weekends off, anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin didn’t, not even to visit his friends in Seoul—friends who had eventually stopped visiting Seungmin, too. What had been frequent visits after Seungmin had moved had turned into nearly nothing at all for the rest of their friend group. Jisung knew that they called and texted Seungmin often, and of course, they got together on birthdays and other occasions, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand how Seungmin, or the other six guys, were so chill about letting the passage of time tear them apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No one is being torn apart, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Chan has patiently explained again and again. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You know how Seungmin is, it’s not personal.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung can’t help but take it personally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How have you been?” The words tumble from Jisung’s lips before he can stop them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin doesn’t look up from where he’s dipping his hands in water and tucking his thumbs carefully into the clay, which is now starting to look like a bowl as it spins slowly on the wheel. “Fifty piece china set,” he reminds. “I’ve been busy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ahh. Duh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What have you been up to?” Seungmin asks. Perfunctory. Mechanically.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” Jisung repeats. “School.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin doesn’t look up from where he’s still throwing the bowl on the wheel. “Can you get the stuff out of the kiln? Be careful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung stands. Sure enough, among a few other random pieces, a dozen similar-sized plates are waiting inside, adorned with pale pink glaze flecked with hints of gold. Jisung moves them one by one to the table and places them </span>
  <em>
    <span>carefully. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Because Seungmin had asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung doesn’t remember when exactly he started to like Seungmin, only that Seungmins fingers have always been so deft, nimble. Jisung’s never seen him wear rings, but he thinks the slight glint of cool metal would suit Seungmin’s hands. He’d started noticing them in college, and then he hadn’t noticed anyone else since. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In college, Jisung would not have pegged Seungmin as the pottery type. It’s still a wonder that Seungmin manages to make a living off of his art, and a decent one, too. Though Jisung also thinks that Seungmin is the type of man who could make a living out of anything he wanted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are just some things that make sense to Seungmin, Jisung has realized. Seungmin is a sensible man, a logical, reasonable man. He likes to make plates and mugs and sculptures because there is an art to pottery and he understands it. He bought a house first thing out of undergrad because he needed a garage to sculpt in and it was a good investment. He likes sex, because nothing is more logical than how amazing it feels to get your dick wet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin is not picky, and he doesn’t get overly sentimental, or even particularly attached to many things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin’s house is in the middle of nowhere, because remaining close to his friends is “not something I had considered” when shopping for a place. He is not choosy about </span>
  <em>
    <span>how </span>
  </em>
  <span>he gets his dick wet, whether that means girls or boys or neither or both. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is where Jisung exists, somewhere on the Venn diagram between things that just make sense to Seungmin and things that Seungmin isn’t overly sentimental about. This is where Jisung exists, and he knows it and all the guys know it, and maybe even Seungmin knows it but Jisung doesn’t care to ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung waits until Seungmin gets up to place the bowl he’s made on the drying rack. “Are you already done?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t throw anymore,” Seungmin says, and levels a pointed look at Jisung. “You’re fidgeting is distracting me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung knits his eyebrows in genuine confusion—had he been fidgeting—before he realizes that. Oh. He was. “Sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin looks thoughtfully over the pieces Jisung had pulled from the kiln. There’s a mug, a brilliant blue mug with hints of cool mint—a different style than Seungmin’s usual. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Commission?” Jisung wonders aloud, creeping up behind Seungmin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just playing around with some new clay,” Seungmin holds it up. His face is unreadable—or maybe there’s nothing that Jisung is supposed to be reading. “Want it? I’m probably just gonna toss it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung is in love with Seungmin, and he has two and a half kitchen cabinets back at his apartment, full-to-bursting with several dozen homemade mugs and plates and toothbrush holders to show for it. “Sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin nods, then places it back on the rack. He blows the imagined grit off his lips with a strong puff of air that makes the bangs across his forehead fly up lightly. He looks pointedly at Jisung. Then, finally— “Do you wanna get off?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perfunctory, again. Not like he </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>wants Jisung, but like he wants Jisung to stop fidgeting, or maybe wants to get off himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung is a creature of habit, not willpower. “Sure.”</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>It’s always hot in the garage, because it’s a garage, but also because of the fired-up kiln. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin’s fingers are cool, like the clay. Tinged a little red and a little brown, because they always are. He smells like clay. Like paint and ceramic stain and expensive cologne and clay. Tiny droplets of sweat bead up at his hairline and trail down his face or splash onto Jisung’s own skin. Jisung knows it’s only because it’s hot, but he’ll take any loss of the careful composure Seungmin builds up so well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laser-sharp focus, quick and practiced hands—this is how Seungmin turns a piece of clay from a lump into an ornate vase.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is also how he has sex.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hands flutter up beneath Jisung’s shirt and up his sides as their lips misalign. Seungmin a little too high, so that he’s sucking Jisung’s upper lip between his own. Jisung lets out an embarrassingly eager sigh anyway, and then they pull back and realign until they get it right.  Seungmin crowds into Jisung’s space so that Jisung’s lower back is pressed uncomfortably into the wooden table. He knows Seungmin is fine to do it here, in the studio, but… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can we go inside?” Jisung asks. “I’m gonna melt in here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin leans back. “Yeah, if you want. Lemme just clean up in here—we can go to my room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung’s dick is already stirring in his sweatpants but it’s the pounding in his heart that is really distracting. They’re gonna do it in Seungmin’s bed. Fuck, that’s as good as it gets. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin double checks the kiln, tosses his water, and locks the garage door. Jisung follows him into the house—a small, organized thing with a familiar layout and multiple of Seungmin’s original pieces scattered about—and up the stairs into the master bedroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung tugs at Seungmin’s apron strings, and then they’re both getting undressed. There’s nothing sexy about it, like in movies when the girl offers her partner a strip tease. No, Jisung tosses his sweatpants onto the ground and Seungmin folds his underwear neatly and it’s just a means to an end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They tumble onto the bed together, and then they’re kissing again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin is a good kisser—slower than Hyunjin, more intense than Felix. Not the best Jisung’s ever had, but the only person he wants ever again. It’s easy like this, Seungmin leaning in to press Jisung deeper into the pillows. It’s easier when they let their bodies talk, so they do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin trails his lips down Jisung’s neck, sucks marks into the skin covering his collarbones, because Jisung never objects. Because Jisung likes to go home with the feeling of Seungmin on his skin. He imagines that Seungmin’s fingertips are still wet with water and clay, that every touch burns red onto Jisung’s skin until he becomes one of Seungmin’s sculptures, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin is taller, but their body types are similar, so that when they rut against each other, it’s sometimes like Jisung is in the arms of another Jisung, a more mature and collected Jisung, the type of person Jisung wants to be and exactly who Seungmin already is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God,” Jisung pants, when Seungmin grinds down in a way that makes him see stars. “How—?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can choose,” Seungmin breathes into his ear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You top,” Jisung says. Because Jisung had fingered himself at home, so it can be perfect and easy for Seungmin. “Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They both know this dance. Jisung is eager, eager. Seungmin: steady.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s all too much when Seungmin presses into him. They do it missionary, a position too personal to be this impersonal. Seungmin pushes Jisung’s knees to his chest and it’s so </span>
  <em>
    <span>deep </span>
  </em>
  <span>this way, so intense, and Jisung can feel every twitch of his dick. Seungmin buries his head into Jisung’s neck and fuck, this is never as good as it is in Jisung’s imagination, when Seungmin whispers sweet nothings into his ears and murmurs that he loves him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it’s still good. The intimacy of the position, the way their grunts mingle together in the still air, the smell of Seungmin’s sweat and cologne and natural musk all over the pillows and blankets and sheets. Then it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>good—when Seungmin reaches between them to jerk at Jsiung’s length in time with his thrusts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They fuck, and Jisung tries to forget what he knows. Forget that the low grunts Seungmin makes ain’t specific to Jisung. Pretend that if Felix, or maybe Hyunjin, took a trip to the countryside, Seungmin wouldn’t have fucked them too, as easy as, “Wanna get off?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jisung’s strung so tight that it shocks him, a little, when Seungmin lets out a groan and pulses into the condom with a couple shallow, hard thrusts. Jisung comes a little after, spilling over Seungmin’s fist, his stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Seungmin’s all sex-addled and breathy and rolling onto the other side of the bed like, “Shit, that was so good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jisung can’t reply, because what is going to come out of his mouth is </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Jisung thinks about Seungmin a lot. He thinks about Seungmin tucked into his side like he is now, he thinks about Seungmin sleep talking and whispering Jisung’s name, he thinks about waking up to Seungmin in bed every morning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seungmin begins to snore, and even this is so </span>
  <em>
    <span>him, </span>
  </em>
  <span>constant and controlled little puffs of air that fan out over Jisung’s bare chest. Even though his dick is soft and spent in the crook of his thighs, Jisung feels on-edge, not fully satisfied, like he had never orgasmed at all. It’s a weird feeling, like he’s forgotten to turn off the oven in his apartment kitchen even though he hasn’t baked anything since Felix moved out months ago. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is not tired at all, or maybe he is a little, but he would rather watch Seungmin sleep. It’s still early enough that Jisung can imagine they’d spent the night together. That they’re something more than whatever this is. Just friends. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not personal, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Chan always reminds him. Because everybody in Seoul knows, Seungmin probably even knows, and it’s so embarrassing, but not enough that Jisung will give this up. Jisung should stop visiting so much, like the other guys had. He should forget about Seungmin, maybe fuck off to Malaysia for a year or two and enjoy that “prime youthfulness” Minho is always wistfully recalling before it’s over. There are so many things Jisung should do that he can’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Jisung does what’s always been easiest—he fills his cabinets with dozens of hand-glazed ceramics, he takes a taxi into the countryside once a month, and he leaves himself open for Seungmin, in case he ever changes his mind. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have no explanation or excuse for this. I'm also not rereading it. Title is from "Not" by Big Thief.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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